The Steven Spielberg Retrospective Part 2: The 1980's - Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun

Release Date: December 9, 1987

Runtime: 152 mins

Nominated for Six Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound.

Winner of ZERO Academy Awards

Sean here.  J. Link viewed Empire of the Sun on her own and her thoughts on the film can be found below. I just wanted to throw in my quick two cents.  To me, this is Spielberg's most underrated film and one of his greatest accomplishments.  It is ultimately about the death of childhood and this was definitely the film that gave Spielberg the strength to go on and tackle Schindler's List. Empire of the Sun was Christian Bale's first screen performance and it is still his finest.  It's a shame that he has an Oscar for The Fighter instead of his superb work here.  The climactic images in the film are haunting as we see Spielberg putting the final nails in the coffin of leaving childhood behind.  He would try to return to the childhood realm with Hook, but would fail miserably.  If you want to see the turning point in Spielberg's career, for better or for worse, look no further than Empire of the Sun.

J. Link's thoughts after the jump...

The Writing on the Wall: Sean's Oscar Predictions, who deserves to win, and who got screwed

By Sean Knight

The Inevitable...

After The King's Speech sweep of the PGA, DGA, and SAG all signs point towards victory for Weinstein and company come Oscar night.  I can't say that I didn't see it coming.  For months many had been saying that The King's Speech was the film to beat.  It is a damn near perfect Oscar bait film on the surface.  But I truly thought that the brilliance and relevance of The Social Network would carry it through, despite it not being a traditional Oscar piece.  I have to admit now that I was wrong.  The Academy hasn't changed and it never will.  This should have been clear to me when Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash back in the 2005 race.  But with challenging pictures such as No Country for Old Men, The Departed, and even The Hurt Locker winning it blinded me.  Plus bloggers for years have been stressing that The Academy is getting younger that they have a broader sense of awareness blah blah blah... BULLSHIT.  Nothing has changed; we just got lucky for a couple of years.  In many ways this years race reminds me of 2001 when Ron Howard's revisionist tame audience friendly psychological character study A Beautiful Mind won best picture over better, bolder, and revolutionary films such as Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge, Gosford Park, and In The Bedroom. Like The King's Speech, A Beautiful Mind was a beautifully acted and well-constructed Hollywood Oscar bait piece.  But also like The King's Speech it watered down it's subject matter to construct a more audience friendly film, it had a mediocre director with no clear vision for his film, and had a huge campaign behind it to convince everyone that it was the film that SHOULD win for being so damn uplifting.  This year The King's Speech faces off against often unconventional and visionary pieces such as Inception, Black Swan, The Social Network, and True Grit.  It is a crime that any of these films would lose to a picture such as The King's Speech, but the advertising doesn't lie - The King's Speech is one likeable fucking movie and at the end of the day voters vote on who they like they best, not who might actually deserve it.  Read on for my predictions in the "Top 6 Categories" after the jump.